Editorials

Closure last month of the Warrenton Visitor Center and Museum at Youngs Bay Plaza generated a strong response on social media, with well-deserved appreciation lavished on volunteer Diane Colli…

For two-earner couples and single parents, child care is life and death. In rural Oregon, creating child care capacity that is dependable is a challenge. It is also a largely unseen, but criti…

After the party, Jane Sweet has a lot of cleaning up to do.

The Port of Astoria’s strategic business plan should tell the unvarnished truth about the agency’s troubled past.

To be a Circuit Court judge in a rural county like ours is to become deeply woven into the fabric of society. “The bench,” as judgeships are known in legal circles, is far more than a front-ro…

Our coast’s many fanatical razor clam diggers feel whipsawed between news that local sands swarm with delicious bivalves but that a new blob of warm seawater might produce a toxic bloom and ma…

Setting educational policy should follow the old adage, “It takes all sorts of people to make a world.”

The Port of Astoria Commission was wise to pause the search for a new executive director.

The hole in the middle of Astoria celebrates its ninth anniversary this year.

Setting aside for the moment that coho returns are predicted to be healthy and Buoy 10 fishing was hot over the Labor Day weekend, this has been another of many troubling years for Columbia Ri…

Astoria could surely learn from tiny Toledo, 140 miles down the Oregon Coast.

For many families, back-to-school time can be hard on the budget.

While we celebrated the milestone of Labor Day on Monday, and many workers in the United States enjoyed a day off, it’s important to remember there is always more we can do to help the nation’…

The first tell was the photo.

The Astoria Design Review Committee should tread carefully with Grocery Outlet.

At last.

In the last 30 years, medical science and community leadership has slowly trended toward a theme that was long overdue.

The caption to a photo we published along with our news coverage of the possible use of the Salvage Chief in a huge emergency said it all.

Gov. Kate Brown’s disdain for rural Oregon is showing.

The depravity of humanity knows no bounds. Witness the carnage in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, this past weekend — and Gilroy, California, the previous weekend.

As Oregonians decide whether to sign petitions to recall Gov. Kate Brown from office, it is worth thinking back to whom she displaced in the governor’s mansion.

The Trump administration claims the conditions at the detention centers are fine and appropriate. That is not what was found by the Oregon congressional delegation.

Probably no core issue on the North Coast has been guaranteed to spark discussion on this page more than affordable housing.

For President Donald Trump to tell any member of Congress to “go back” to the “places from which they came” is a violation of basic American norms.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pepper-spraying people in a Clatsop County Courthouse corridor while sheriff’s deputies look on? Is this really a situation anyone should find acceptable?

In the final day of the session, the Oregon Senate passed House Bill 2015, a measure that will allow illegal immigrants and other Oregonians who can’t prove their legal residence status to get…

The partisan excesses and political turmoil of the 2019 Oregon Legislature have been well-documented. But the now-finished legislative session also should be remembered for some good work on b…

Ask our brave friends in the U.S. Coast Guard and they will tell you with cool assurance that the people who survive a rescue at sea are wearing lifejackets. Those who fish or sail without wea…

When it comes to unfolding train wrecks, the best advice is to watch it happen from a safe distance.

There is no better example of political failure than the move by Republican lawmakers to walk away from the Oregon Legislature Thursday.

Politicians deserve plaudits when they do the right thing. In Oregon, they’re likely to get punished.

We’ve taken a wait-and-see attitude towards Oregon’s carbon cap-and-trade proposal, which has been winding its way through the state Legislature this session.

A few weeks ago, state Sen. Betsy Johnson of Scappoose took to the Senate floor and pointed out the irony within a proposal to change how Oregon helps elect our nation’s president.

Infrastructure is too boring a word for a set of assets that go to the very core of a functioning civilization.

Oregon’s unique tax “kicker” law is working exactly as intended, potentially sending more than $1.4 billion — yes, billion — back to taxpayers next year.

During Emergency Medical Services Week, it is fitting to salute all those who are trained and ready to respond to any crisis with skilled professionalism.

Oregon voters watched Monday as political drama took center stage in Salem when Republican members of the Senate returned after a weeklong walkout.

Over the past two and a half decades on this page we have celebrated the renaissance of Astoria.

The Oregon Legislature came oh-so-close to succeeding.

“Looting” isn’t a word that crops up very often in local news coverage, so it caused a degree of consternation last month when it was applied to a theft inside Lewis and Clark National Histori…

Every 10 years, as one decade transitions into the next, the U.S. government conducts a national census to count the number of people living in the country.

The good news is Gov. Kate Brown finally has a plan for putting PERS on solid financial footing. The bad news is that it includes pushing SAIF off that solid ground, as well as taking most of …

Our differences are well documented. Lines drawn along political, philosophical, ethnic and religious divides give the impression that we’re all on different teams.

Southern Resident Killer Whales come achieve nearly unanimous popularity in the communities surrounding Puget Sound, acquiring folk hero status in the past half century. Their trials and tribu…

That 825 Oregonians died in a single year by suicide is a sobering assessment of our collective ability to help those who feel trapped in their own despair.

The Oregon Legislature’s longtime human resources director was deservedly criticized for her handling of sexual harassment cases at the State Capitol. Yet Lore Christopher received a sweet dea…

Oregon’s history tells story of a populace’s fickle approach to the death penalty.

PERS will swallow much of the $2 billion that the Oregon Legislature is trying to raise for public schools. Even the Legislature’s Democratic leadership concedes this.

On the surface, life is back to normal in the Oregon Capitol.

When lawmakers are elected and go to Salem, they take with them the hopes and dreams of their home communities.

Democrats hold Oregon’s fate in their hands — at least for the near term.

It is in these early months each year when a sense begins to emerge about the condition of forthcoming salmon runs in the Pacific Northwest. Mysterious to the uninitiated, the North of Falcon …

Oregon legislators are to be commended for going outside Salem to hear from real people about the state budget and other issues. But lawmakers should go further, adding more rural perspective …

Former Secretary of State Norma Paulus was a product of rural Oregon. She exemplified what individuals can do when given a chance — conquering poverty, polio and the lack of a college degree t…